


Barrage

by Ladycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M, Porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-12 00:00:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1179505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He spoke too much, face and hands giving away skeins of information even if Rodney did manage to clamp his teeth together in time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Barrage

Rodney was very, very bad at hiding things. Forget about his lack of a decent poker face -- John refused to let him play anymore, since it was as horrible to witness as it seemed to be for Rodney to experience -- Rodney just wasn't very good with _secrets_. He spoke too much, face and hands still giving away skeins of information even if Rodney did manage to clamp his teeth together in time. Everything was open, on display, a three-dimensional billboard drenched in fluorescents.

Even when Rodney didn't actually want to tell anyone anything.

Being quiet was impossible when you were Rodney McKay. It meant an extreme -- really wrong or really right, it didn't matter which end of the spectrum, just that it _was_ an end -- and that would immediately tip off an observer that a closer look was needed. Rodney knew that. Had known that, for a very long time, John guessed from the occasional haunted gray among the normally piercing blue gaze. So Rodney had learned: instead of trying to hide everything, Rodney compromised and only hid _some_ of it. The important parts, like aliens and rings that shimmered with grey-blue light, that was never mentioned -- but that he was a genius, or paid exorbitant amounts by the government, working on experimental data, that everyone knew within moments of meeting the inimitable Dr. Rodney McKay.

It took a while to see the hiding under the verbal barrage. John used to hate it, wincing every time another perceived slip or hint was given -- and yeah, sometimes it did come back to hurt them. PXM-383 hadn't been exactly what one would call a good time had by all, for instance.

But that was just one time. Of all the times, of all the peoples and places, all the things they did, when it came to the important things Rodney covered them up with a mountain of words, complaints and insults, intellectual nattering enough that even the sharpest mind -- even _Zelenka_ \-- would grow annoyed or frustrated and leave. And the secret parts, the important parts, would still be safe.

The problem was the secrets Rodney kept were always about _things._ Stuff. Ideas that were collectively held, Rodney only one fish -- okay, bigger, but still, just one -- among many. They had never been about him, about _Rodney_ before.

This time, it did.

Everyone knew that Rodney was upset about something. Each gesture grew sharper, fingers stabbing towards eyes or the softer, more painful parts of the body instead of the normal flailing that everyone had already learned how to avoid. Insults were honed to a razor edge, and Rodney never smiled anymore. Rumor and gossip were the few sources of lighthearted entertainment they had, so of course each new outcry or twisted frown was analyzed, magnified a thousand-fold to find any kind of reason why.

_"I hate this," Rodney said, eyes focused on the clock that would never stop. "I don't know how to deal with this."_

_"Do you want to... not do this?" The question drew blades up from John's gut, tearing at his throat as he spoke them. He didn't want to ask. He never wanted to hear the answer. But John had spent most of his life hiding who he was, instead of Rodney's_ what _he was, and he knew this game better._

_Rodney rolled over to glare at him, so angry that a vein ticked blue and shadowed along his temple. "Are you_ stupid?" _he demanded, the bitter, caustic words at odds with the broken light of his eyes._

_"No," John said, and these words hurt even more. Wear a mask too long and it became truth, no matter how anathema the shape at first. "No, Rodney, I'm not."_

When Elizabeth privately spoke to him, each question dancing around her true intent, hinting at things so far off mark, so _wrong_ \-- well. That was when John finally saw that it wasn't just that Rodney was concealing things, it was that he was using _John_ method, swallowing up everything under a loose, casual sprawl nothing, not even the most demanding CO, had ever been able to penetrate. He was attempting to _hide_ , the way John did, the way Rodney never really had.

"I'll take care of it," John told her, quirking a smile like everything was right in the world.

"Are you sure, John?" She was the only one to use his name outside of what little privacy they could scrounge up, a way of making them equals, partners. "I'm worried about him."

"I'm on it," he said, because _don't be_ was useless enough to be rude. Elizabeth worried about everyone, always, and not because her job demanded it.

John had never really worried about anyone before. He was pretty sure it fit him badly, Yoda's mantra fading into the what-if's Rodney always theorized, a second skin that covered nothing and protected even less. But it covered him, now, and John wasn't sure that was a bad thing. A little worry was better then the numb see-saw of following or giving orders.

Rodney's mouth was a dark slash of discomfort when John collected him from the lab. "I just need -- "

"To leave," John interrupted, smiling when even Zelenka blinked at his tone. "C'mon, Rodney, food and shower and bed."

That had Rodney narrowing his eyes, flicking his gaze to the watchful lab -- did any of them ever go to sleep, without the growing number of soldiers who forced them? John liked that trend, approved of it as the ranking officer and, if nothing else, because at least half of the mother-henning soldiers _weren't_ involved with their chosen scientist -- before crossing his arms over his chest, hands tucked into his armpits like they were cold, shoulders hunched in misery. "I'm busy."

"I really don't care." Rodney always went where John led him, and this time was no different. A hand around Rodney's arm and he was moving, shuffling alongside John as he was led to the mess where they gathered whatever was portable, and back to his quarters.

_John's_ quarters.

Inside, Rodney stopped the long suffering act, relaxing into a quieter kind of confusion. "Um? I thought you were going to make me sleep."

John busied himself with opening containers and digging out his stash of plates and utensils. "You've had maybe two powerbars all day, Rodney, eat first."

Rodney's fingers flicked out, nails catching the light; John knew what that meant and was a little worried when Rodney didn't vocalize the question. But Rodney was sitting and eating at a pace slightly slower then his normal wolfing, so John relaxed and finished off his own late supper. Rodney watched him the entire time, silent as he puzzled through whatever pieces he already had and this new enigma before him; John ignored that, acting as cheerful and casual as he knew how.

Once finished, Rodney stood and looked at the locked door. "Okay, you know what? I have no idea what's going on, but we never do this here. So if this is just food and then good bye, well, then, thanks for dinner, Colonel, and it's really time for me to -- uh."

John knew he was attractive, knew Rodney enjoyed looking at him, but he'd never blatantly used it like this before. The moment Rodney's back had turned, he'd stripped as fast as only a soldier knew how, posing himself to show off the tuck of his hip, the line of his neck, and the shadow of silver curving against his chest -- all specifically designed and catered to one purpose.

Rodney looking wide-eyed and stunned was always so _hot._

"Come here," he said, holding out his hand and taking a step back. He'd never played the seducer before, but he'd seen it done enough to know all the right moves -- more, he knew what _Rodney_ liked, and he was pretty sure he was okay with giving it. "Come on."

"This is so _wrong_ ," Rodney murmured, hushed and breathless, but he still stumbled forward, gripping John's hand so tightly that it hurt. "What are you -- with the -- god, do you know how _good_ \-- "

John nodded, pushing Rodney's hands away to divest him of his clothes, caressing each exposed area and fully conscious of how this was mirrored and reversed from their normal. And it _did_ feel wrong, like trying to run up a waterfall, pushing against gravity, but that felt right, too, because a pilot was nothing but someone who constantly defied the laws of man and nature. "Hey," he said when Rodney tried to pull away. "I want this."

That silenced whatever words that had gathered on Rodney's tongue, mouth slack with surprise as John laid down, tugging Rodney over him. "You -- what?"

"I want this," John repeated, leaning up for kiss Rodney could only absently return. "Here."

Rodney accepted the tube, staring at it blankly for almost thirty seconds before the prodigious mind of his clicked. And even then, he remained quiet and still -- and Rodney was never quiet or still -- just staring at the tube, little and white against his big pink fingers, and up at John's face, trying to tug out secrets John no longer wanted to hold on to.

Then he moved, or time did, because John was on his back, gasping as slick fingers worked within him. Rodney was whispering, nonsense words that weren't designed to do anything but let John _hear_ , his voice filling up the spaces the way three fingers became four, filling up John's body the way he'd never known he needed. "Relax," Rodney told him, the word breathed over skin already wet with sweat and need, cooling it into gooseflesh. "It'll be good, I'll make it good, I promise."

"I know," John choked out, stretched wider than he thought possible.

Rodney didn't answer, too busy watching as his thumb tucked and then slid in, disappearing into shadows and heat. John cried out for him, panting harshly as his body throbbed around too much, too much, not _enough_ , the dissonant scrape of the violin as pain melded into pleasure and pleasure became even _more_.

"Yeah," Rodney said to him, lips brushing against John's cock as he leaned forward, blood and breath and heat, focused into a laser's intensity. "Oh, god, yes, just like that. Give it to me." And then he _flexed_ , swallowed into John's body even as he slid down, swallowing John in return and John had maybe thirty seconds to feel Rodney inside him and over him, taking him, before he _shattered._

When the world settled into recognizable shapes again, lines the eye could follow and understand, John reached out guiltily. Rodney's chuckle, as hazy as a bright summer's day, stopped him. "No need. Go to sleep."

"Mmph," John told him, his mouth Novocaine numb.

"Uh huh." Rodney shifted, the bed shivering underneath as he reached for something that sounded like cloth, sounded like --

John forced his head up. "What're you doing?" he slurred.

"Cleaning up?"

John narrowed his eyes, focusing them on the shirt Rodney had half-tugged over his head and the expression that wanted to be guileless and never could be. "No."

"Colonel -- "

"No, I said."

Rodney's slow inhalation was a warning shot across the bow. "And what, exactly, are you _no_ ing? That I don't want to go to sleep dirty? That maybe I would _like_ to go to sleep sometime soon? I've had a very long day, ensuring you and the rest of your block-head marines don't die, and I'm -- I'm exhausted and -- and why are you grinning?"

Moving wasn't something John ever wanted to do again, but he somehow managed it enough that there was a very clear space where one slightly stocky body could stretch out across. The white sheets looked ethereal in the dim half-light that was Atlantis at night, almost glowing. "I take care of dinner," he said quietly. "You take care of breakfast."

The nights when John tossed and turned the bed would creak with every change in position, heralding his distress to anyone who could hear through soundproofed walls. Now, though, the bed remained silent as Rodney let himself down against the mattress, back fitting against John's chest with a sigh. "I do?"

"You do," John promised. "Every morning."


End file.
